A fitness twist on a holiday icon. The "Naughty or Nice" list.

Truth be told I'm not a big fan of saying exercises are 'good' or 'bad', as there is always much needed context behind everything. Since these newsletters allow me to elaborate a touch more, I'll give it a go.

We'll start with the real goods...The Naughty List

1) Bicep Curl to Overhead Press...or really just any type of combination movement.

There's a really good quote that says "If you chase two rabbits, you'll go home hungry". This means that if you try to do too much then you'll rarely achieve your goal. In the case of most combination movements you end up training one muscle group and just going through the motions on the other. Specifically in the curl to press...you should be able to press more than you curl, but since the curl comes first you end up going way too light on the press to train the curl. You're better off to just train most movements separately and with their appreciable weights.

In case you were wondering, the combo move that I adore is this glute bridge to hamstring curl variation...

2) Renegade Rows​

I love rows, but not this variation. Much like the notion from above, renegade rows combine the plank and the row in such a way that most people end up butchering the plank to perform the row and then they can't perform the row without getting tipsy during the plank. See the problem here? Renegade rows tend to be more 'technical' and require a lot of core stiffness to do with any level of success so they tend to get thrown in to workout programs just to make the program 'hard'. Woof.

Okay, lets spread some holiday cheer...The Nice List

1) Kettlebell Windmills.

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2024 was the year of weighted core movements for me and I found myself doing windmills as well as teaching my clients how to do them as well.

2) Fan Bike and Rowing.

The rower made a late push to get on the nice list this year, as the fan bike (Rogue Echo or Assault Bike) was originally on the top spot of the nice list. Listen, training your cardiovascular system is drastically overlooked. If you're new here (or just missed it...) I spent the first half of this year improving my blood lipid profile pretty dramatically by way of diet (what up, fiber) and very intentional cardio training (zone 2!). Using low impact and low skill modalities like the fan bike was instrumental in my success. As a Personal Trainer who works with all walks of life, my clients appreciate the ease of use with these modalities as well. Easy on the joints, they can be trained 'hard', and can be scaled up for high intensity work or scaled down for long duration slow steady state work. That's a win-win.

What do you think? What's on your naught or nice list for 2024? Should I do a nutrition list for this as well? Click the reply button and let me know.

Until next week,

-Casey